So I decided to look into some podcasts. Looks like this ol' thread's about scripted stuff, but I don't see any other podcast threads, and I'm not really looking for scripted stuff at the moment (I've got a buttload of Big Finish Doctor Who I haven't listened to yet as it is); I want something where if I lose the thread for a minute to concentrate on the road, I'm not going to miss out on important story details.

So here's what I've been looking at so far:

Somebody recommended Talkin Toons with Rob Paulsen; I listened to the Rick and Morty episode and thoroughly enjoyed it. It hasn't been updated in a couple of years (Paulsen's throat cancer no doubt played a part; he's doing better) but there's plenty of old stuff there to keep busy for awhile.

There's Retronauts, of course. And Axe of the Blood God, USGamer's RPG podcast, which I listened to a couple of times when Stiv was on it. (I don't think he's been on it recently, but it's still a good group.)

As for actually-scripted podcasts (not what I'm currently looking for, but more on-topic), I enjoyed the one episode of Dead Pilots Society I listened to. It's a podcast where they do read-throughs of TV pilot scripts that never made it into production; the one I listened to and enjoyed was Only Child, a John Hodgman vehicle (the hook was he was playing himself as a teenager; all the other kids would have been played by age-appropriate actors).

Le Podcast is two French dudes living in China doing a podcast about France, in English. The first two episodes are probably the most immediately relevant to a politically-minded foreign audience, being about Macron's rise to power and the presidential election in general, but if you have any interest in that part of the world at all I can't sufficiently recommend the whole thing so far.

Empires of Eve is a recounting of Eve Online's in-game political history, and it has no business being as fascinating as it is. There are only 70 minutes out so far, so it's probably the best time to jump in. It's been kinda slow to come out though.

I figure I'll go ahead and post literally everything I'm currently subscribed to; I have just barely enough time at work and during my commute to listen that the feed remains manageable, but I never quite manage to actually get to the last one in the order right now (which is, despite my earlier posting, Friends at the Table; being serialized table top gaming, I prefer to listen to it when I have a stretch of uninterrupted time and have some episodes built up as a backlog, so possibly on my next drive to Louisana I'll get into Twilight Mirage).

My subscription feed in alphabetical order:

8-4 Play Podcast: The rambling gaming podcast about Japan, Video Games, and Japanese video games by the fine folks at 8-4 translations. Mostly interesting for the inside baseball and the perspective out of Japan, but can be kinda wearying at times. Good thing it's (Bi-weekly)!

[Bracket!]: The Sweet 16 bracket podcast determined to rank everything one episode at a time, by a bunch of dumb goobers who I find hilarious. Come for the episodes about topics you care about so you can yell at their bad opinions, stay to find out if they'll ever get to the Tournament of Tournament of Champions wherein they bracket out the 16 winners of the 16 prior Tournament of Champions, which are of course the 16 winners from each season. (Weekly)

Anime World Order Podcast: If you're an old fogey of an anime but like to hear about some new stuff now and again, this is the only anime podcast I've ever actually liked. Good deep dives on their reviews, with lots of historical and behind the scenes info whenever possible, they're able to look at anime fandom as a whole from the tape-trading days until now without really villifying or lauding any one era as THE BEST. (Monthlyish at this point)

Axe of the Blood God: USGamer's weekly RPG podcast. Kat and Jeremy are two folks I love in games writing, but man, their voices together definitely made for the most heavy-lidded listening experience ever. Nadia gives the podcast a much better balance overall, as she and Kat both agree and diverge on a lot of RPG topics in a way that usually makes for a good conversation about new and upcoming stuff while also diving into older titles with their frequent "reports". (Weekly)

Fast Karate for the Gentleman: I guess this is technically an anime podcast as well. Two dudes from Philly who have been friends forever shooting the shit about games and anime and food; current episodes are usually deep dive recaps of whatever Jojo's Bizarre Adventure episodes they've watched most recently, but this is one of those "man, I bet we'd be friends!!" type of shows that just feels good to listen to no matter the topic. (Whenever they update)

Friends from the Internet: See the prior URL, but it's the Dave and Graz RSS rather than the Fast Karate RSS. This is Dave from Fast Karate doing advice podcasts with his wife Graziella, who are just as fun to listen to I M H O. It's also a bit of a catchall, including deep dive episode recaps of Revenge (which I skip, having never seen the show) and ridiculous "I'm going to wake my wife up and immediately begin quizzing her on if this is a real anime title or a fake one sent in by our fans" podcasts called Morning Brew. Your mileage may vary on the scattershot feed, but Dave and Graz just remind me a lot of myself and my fiance in a way that I find charming to listen to. (Whenever they update)

Friends at the Table: As listed above. An awesome queer/POC friendly tabletop actual play podcast with really cool characters, settings, and gameplay systems run by Austin Walker and friends. They have a patreon for extra one-shot content and more goodies, but the main feed will give you complete stories season by season. If you're into mecha anime and capitalism represented as a giant lovecraftian robot, start with Counter/Weight, their second season which is a pretty self contained story. Hieron/Marielda is their ongoing fantasy series which is also super awesome, but a lot of people recommend going to Counter/Weight first and jumping back since the first few sessions of Hieron are a liiiittle bit rough. (Weekly)

The Giant Bombcast, The Giant Beastcast, Giant Bomb Presents: Pretty much still my favorite thing going in gaming podcasts since the days of 1up, you probably know if you like or hate them by now. Some staff changes and new personnel have shaken things up a little as of late however, and you might find things more to your liking (or less!) as of the past few months; for my money, The Beastcast is where the bulk of my actual engagement is with Giant Bomb's content as I find the rapport and voices on the East Coast just far more my speed these days, but Jeff Gerstmann is still damn good listening on the topic of games most anytime. Special shout out to Giant Bomb Presents, their kinda catch-all 'other stuff' feed, for both extending the Bombcast by an hour each week with a call-in show now and also hosting The Department of New Business, the ridiculous improv podcast the two newest hires do where they 'interview' various other games writers for their own intern position. It's dumb as hell, but in a charming way. (All weekly).

The Greatest Movie EVER!: Paul Chapman is just a mega-dork who genuinely appreciates goofy cinema in its myriad forms, and often reviews them with his mom. Usually gets in and out in under an hour and is generally just pleasant listening, especially these days when he got rid of his old habits of soundboards and such. Also technically makes me a liar again about anime podcasts since he has GME Anime Fun Time show up once a month or so to strictly review anime. (Weekly)

How Did This Get Made?: Three actors/comedians riff on crappy and/or beloved movies, usually with a somewhat recognizable guest. Their schtick can wear thin sometimes, but then every few months you get an absolutely fucking sublime rabbit hole (usually courtesy of June) to go tumbling down. A lot of live shows mixed in, which I know some people have FEELINGS about. There are also solo-hosted mini-episodes on the off weeks, mostly to let you know what the following week's movie will be ahead of time and to act as a listener-mail section for the prior week's movie. (Weekly)

The Purple Stuff Podcast: Remember X-Entertainment, mining everyone's nostalgia practically before everyone else did? Well, it's still around as DinosaurDracula.com these days, and he and his friend have a super silly podcast where they do top ten countdowns or whatever the hell else they feel like talking about based around a variety of dumb, esoteric subjects. Extra recommendation listening points if you're enthusiastic about the Halloween season, since they're both big marks for anything Halloween related. (Whenever)

Retronauts: You probably know what this is, but hey, retro gaming topics from some of the best people around when it comes to researching and respecting the good old days, and also Bob Mackey is there. (I kid!) (Weekly, with extra Micro episodes)

Talkin' Toons with Rob Paulsen: As seen above. Rob tells the same hoary jokes and stories over and over again if you end up plowing through the backlog, but man there are some damn good interviews throughout the catalogue. (On hiatus, as mentioned)

Talking Simpsons: Wow, Bob Mackey! You've probably heard it shilled if you listen to Retronauts, but Talking Simpsons really is an EXHAUSTIVE dive into every episode of the show, teasing out the research and stories behind every little gag until a 22 minute episode becomes a 90 minute podcast. Fun way to revisit the show if you like the hosts of the podcast, and currently the only podcast I'm actually giving anything to on Patreon; it's pretty well worth kicking them a few bucks if you dig what they're doing, as behind the Patreon they're not only doing the same exhaustive deep dive with every Critic episode right now, but you get some good interviews with Simpsons staff members here and there as well. (Weekly)

Til' Death Do Us Part: Patrick (of Giant Bomb, Kotaku, and now Waypoint) and Katie Klepek review horror movies. This was just resurrected this week as having a kid kinda took them out of the podcasting game, but if you want discussions of horror movies and only horror movies I think they're a pretty charming couple to listen to about them (even if I don't always agree with their takes). (Weeeeeekly??? probably not)

The USGamer Podcast: Mike Williams has the smoothest voice in gaming podcasts, and while there's not much you'll get out of the USGamer flagship show that was recently resurrected than you will out of any other general gaming-website podcast, as always, it's more about the personalities and opinions you gel with more than the content itself. Caty McCarthy has been a great addition to USGamer thanks to being much younger than a lot of the other crew and being completely unapologetic about her opinions so often running contrary to the norm. (Weekly)

Waypoint Radio: On the other hand, do you want a gaming podcast that actually has something to say? Austin, Patrick, Danielle Riendeau, and Rob Zacny mix up politics and gaming and discussions of the culture around gaming in a way that's fun and entertaining and vital in a way that pushes this to the top of my list to listen to with every new episode. It's also much more of the moment and topical than similar gaming podcasts for that exact reason, usually diving into whatever bullshit has happened in the world the day of or before they record. Austin's by far my favorite voice in games writing right now, so I might be a little biased. (Bi-weekly, but the version that means twice a week and not every two weeks).

Niku wrote:Waypoint Radio: On the other hand, do you want a gaming podcast that actually has something to say? Austin, Patrick, Danielle Riendeau, and Rob Zacny mix up politics and gaming and discussions of the culture around gaming in a way that's fun and entertaining and vital in a way that pushes this to the top of my list to listen to with every new episode. It's also much more of the moment and topical than similar gaming podcasts for that exact reason, usually diving into whatever bullshit has happened in the world the day of or before they record. Austin's by far my favorite voice in games writing right now, so I might be a little biased. (Bi-weekly, but the version that means twice a week and not every two weeks).

A few weeks back Austin brought up a podcast called Spawn On Me. Its a gaming podcast with a completely minority cast. Just like Waypoint Radio its often politically minded. If you like Waypoint Radio or just want to hear gaming news/opinion from a prospective you don't normally gets its really fucking good.

I'm listening to M-Class Podcast right now! It's all about Star Trek. They've done episodes covering all the movies, and now they're going through the pilot episodes of each series (with DS9's "Emissary" being the most recent). They talk about each film and episode in turn and just go over their thoughts and John Larroquette fun facts. The hosts, Jeff and Josh, are pretty silly, and they're fun to listen to. I would recommend the series if you have any interest in Trek.

Joxam wrote:A few weeks back Austin brought up a podcast called Spawn On Me. Its a gaming podcast with a completely minority cast. Just like Waypoint Radio its often politically minded. If you like Waypoint Radio or just want to hear gaming news/opinion from a prospective you don't normally gets its really fucking good.

I'm super keen on checking out Spawn on Me; I've had it earmarked as my next addition. My problem is I pretty much have a need to listen to an entire back catalogue to catch up to where a podcast is now (borne more out of the fact that I had SO MUCH FUCKING TIME to fill at work when I started listening to podcasts in the first place than just completionism) so I can get a feel for the evolution of the hosts, the inside jokes, the standard way of business, etc etc etc. So I add an entire podcast catalogue whenever I run out of new episodes to listen to, thus giving me that precious buffer of endless content at the bottom of the well -- but my listening time has started fluctuating a lot over the past several months, so I haven't been able to reach the bottom and feel the need to add anything new just yet. (This also has obvious downsides when podcasts are tackling topical things, but I kinda like the time capsule of catching up on the past few years sometimes as well; I've considered going back to the Bombcasts from before I started listening.)

FYI, the link to the Zmuda episode on Gottfried's site is bad, and so are the links on a bunch of other sites where I tried to find it. So, since I finally found it, here's a link for a version that works: mp3gratiss.com

So apparently Talkin' Toons moved to Nerdist, which has a bunch of short videos but no episodes; there are some articles referring me to a subscription service called Alpha but it's not mentioned on the website and argh, what the fuck?

Rob's tried a lot of other variations on Talkin' Toons, trying to get it filmed, or put on various streaming/video services, or just the thing he was doing for a while where you'd only get the first thirty minutes of an interview without donating. I honestly have no idea if this is another one of those attempts, or something re-purposing older content, or what. As far as I can tell, it's a video version of new interviews? Just judging from the clips and the shpiel underneath them, in any case.

If things go behind a paywall, that's fine, but it's up to whoever's operating that paywall to actually make it easy for me to give them my money and understand exactly what I'm getting in that transaction. (Also, watching video content is fundamentally different than listening to podcasts; the entire reason I listen to so many is because I can actually sneak them into my time throughout the day. So that sucks personally.)

Every episode they create a new genre and just talk about it, playing examples and bullshitting. They're really knowledgeable about the history of a lot of different genres, they're not toxic or shitty, they're longtime friends so they have a pretty easy way of getting under each other's skin, and they're great at just letting the conversation move organically and grow without letting it derail into boring or pointless tangents. It's good listening.

Some genres I particularly liked:

Sex Me Ups: Songs about the singer saying they want to fuck specifically you the listener, on no uncertain terms, with no flowery or metaphorical language. These are songs that have to make a teenager think "gee willikers, if I walked into this room right now, she/he would want to go down on _me!!_"

Easy Wickening: Satanic or pagan-themed music that like, mostly sucks rather than rocks. Whereas Black Sabbath went one way, these bands went the other way, both having pretty similar lyrical stuff but completely different ways of delivering it.

Try-N-Raps: The weird, misguided white-guys-told-by-producers-to-add-light-rapping-into-their-music-to-stay-relevant era that hit between 78-85.

One ep that gives a decent feel for the show is Nyacht Rock, where they go over songs people put on their Yacht Rock lists, that doesn't really fit the concept of the genre.

I particularly liked David Lyons absolutely losing it and unable to hold back his rant about Jimmy Buffet at 31:44:

David Lyons wrote:Smooth is not the same thing as mellow. Smooth implies a coolness, like you're suave and you're polished - there's a fire inside you, but it's a well-tended fire. You gotta keep that fire burning. When you're mellow, it's like you're trying not to experience any emotions whatsoever. That you're trying to kill off what's inside of you, until your entire soul is dead, and Jimmy Buffet's soul is dead.

Its smartest choice is that it's not told from Wolverine's perspective; it follows two investigators who are on his trail and, as they're looking for him, stumble upon a series of small-town murders he's been implicated in -- plus drug smugglers, a religious cult, corrupt cops, and a shady family that owns most of the town's industry.

This allows for a couple of good conceits. One is that a good big chunk of the story is told in the form of debriefings and witness accounts, which provides a reason for most of the story to have a narrator -- always useful for a radio play. Another is that Logan himself is something of a cipher and a mystery; you don't hear his voice at all until the second episode, and then it's because the investigators find a letter he's written but hasn't sent. (The letter is read in Logan's voice.) For most of the series they remain one step behind; Logan appears in other characters' narration and in recordings they find, but the leads don't actually come face-to-face with him until the end of the series.

And it also takes the story outside the usual superhero genre trappings. It feels a lot more like X-Files than X-Men.

Richard Armitage plays Wolverine, and he does a fantastic job. I have to figure the thought of casting him as the new live-action version has at least crossed Kevin Feige's mind at this point.

It's on Stitcher Premium. You can get a free one-month subscription. Much like the recent Weird Al tour, they don't make downloading the MP3s trivial, but they don't make it very hard, either; check the source, search for "mp3", and Bob's yer uncle.

But this was good enough that, if Marvel follows up with any more scripted podcasts, I think I'll sign up for a paid subscription.

FTF, (Officially not Fuck the Future) has been running for a couple of months now, episode one is a teardown of how and why the modern internet is driving our society into an idiocracy, primarily through the dysfunctional social dynamics of sites like Twitter and also because they're owned and run by unashamed white supremacists and we done got played. It's from the minds that brought us http://theworstthingsforsale.com